www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | XXXX 20XX | 15
The Works
E
ven the victims gave it little thought
until recent times, but the industry
now appears to be waking up to
water the. Whether it is developers
making an illegal connection to a main for
a block of flats or street-sweepers hooking
up to an unauthorised standpipe, water
companies must contend with the
consequences.
In January, Thames Water made
in identifying them. So how much of a
problem is unauthorised water extraction?
The short answer is that nobody really
knows. Thames estimates that it may lose
between 2 and 3 million litres of water
to such crime every year, and there is no
reason to think that it is out of step with
the rest of the UK. But the key issue is
that there is no way of separating water
that is lost in this fashion from water that
www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | MAY 2018 | 15
headlines with its decision to hire a
team of investigators to track down
perpetrators of water the, with the
water company having described the rise
in unauthorised connections, from 33 in
2011 to 734 in 2017, as "dramatic".
However, while there has been
a substantial number of recorded
incidents, the increase is in large part
down to the utility taking the initiative
Whether it is unauthorised connections or the illegal use of standpipes,
water companies are increasingly clamping down on non-revenue
water lost to water the
By Robin Hackett
Laying down the Law
